Monthly Archives: June 2014

Over the past few months, Frumple has been generating new random seeds on the Gamma server to find good candidates for our final “new” map. While we’re not quite ready to vote on a finalist yet, we are beginning to compile a lot of seeds that are looking quite favorable.

Has interesting water features like oceans, rivers and lakes. Bonus points if there are good-sized islands in the middle of the ocean.

Has some desert, savannah, forest and extreme hills biomes. Bonus points if it includes the variants like Sunflower Plains.

Has a minimal amount of biomes that most people avoid – these are the jungle and swamp biomes, as they’re often times crowded over by shrubbery and vines. These biomes are OK but in small quantities.

Our world settings for generation are:

Minecraft 1.7.9

Large Biomes

Random seeds (though we are keeping track of them)

Structures turned off

The world radius will be doubled to 6400 blocks in each direction from spawn (-6400 to +6400), however just like the current world you will be able to see outside of that.

We’ve been posting Dynmap renders of each seed to this imgur album. Our current favorites are seeds 2 and 14. We’re currently generating seed 54!

If you’re interested in helping us out, you can download AMIDST v3.6 from the Minecraft Forums here. This tool will let you view the biomes of a seed without generating it, in a map like Dynmap. For best results, turn off all of the layers, and keep pressing Control-R (same on Mac) until you find a good seed, then copy it to your clipboard and send us an email at admin [at] minecartrapidtransit.net. Who knows, it might become a Candidate Seed or even the final seed!

(Note: We can’t generate every seed and turn it into a candidate seed, but we will look at all seeds you send us with AMIDST and generate the ones that look awesome).

The June GSM has concluded. A recording of the public portion and Q&A can be found here.

I discussed a bit about Mojang’s recent post about server monetization. I’ve summarized my talk into a separate news post, which you can find here.

The new server (codenamed “Gamma Server”) is up and running, but only accessible to staff as we test out new plugins. Since we still have to test out things, choose a new world, and then build the initial roads and MRT lines on the new world, it is unlikely that the new server will be ready by the upcoming server anniversary in July. The earliest estimate I can give you right now would be September, but again, it will be ready when it’s ready.

Speaking of choosing a new world, you can have a look at some of the Candidate Seeds that we’re considering. Right now, Candidate Seed 2 and 14 are what we consider the best candidates so far. For a seed to be considered “good”, we’re looking for the following criteria:

Large Biomes, structures turned off

Spawn is in Plains biome or near Plains biome

Some ocean biomes with interesting coastlines or lakes, islands would be a bonus

Some desert and savannah biomes

Has a significantly-sized Arctic biome somewhere on map

Has a significantly-sized Mesa biome somewhere on map

Has a minimum amount of undesirable biomes such as swamp or jungle.

Only one Trusted promotion this time around, and that goes to Cortesi. Congratulations!

The May Build Auction has concluded and the results can be found here. The staff have also decided to discontinue holding these build auctions for the time being. If you would like to gain ownership of an inactive build, please instead e-mail the admins and we will consider each proposal on a case-by-case basis at future GSMs.

That’s all for now, if you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to contact us by e-mail.

As some of you may be aware, Mojang has made a post about server monetization with some rules of what is allowed and not allowed. The gist of it is that Mojang is targeting many of the larger “pay-to-win” servers that allow players to pay money to gain a gameplay advantage, such as gaining diamonds, weapons, currency, powerful commands, etc. However, Mojang is okay with players paying for “purely cosmetic” items such as pets and hats. I would assume that things that we have for our supporter benefits, such as chat prefixes, and the use of color on chat and signs would also fall under the category of being “purely cosmetic.”

With the supporter ranks, I’ve always run with the philosophy that we should recognize people who have made a supporter contribution, but they should not have any significant gameplay advantages over non-supporters. Many players have suggested that we give supporters more perks such as additional warps, special building privileges, or more in-game currency (when we get to it), but I’ve always been reluctant to implement these suggestions for the reasons above. Now that Mojang has made it quite clear that paying for gameplay advantages is not allowed, these suggestions will no longer be considered. This doesn’t mean that we won’t ever add new supporter perks in the future, but they must fall within the definition of being “purely cosmetic” and not provide any unfair gameplay advantages.

TL;DR: The supporter benefits we have will remain unchanged, since they are “purely cosmetic” and allowed by Mojang.

If you have any further questions about this topic, feel free to e-mail the admins at admin [at] minecartrapidtransit.net.

I wish to inform you all that BossOfGames has been demoted from Moderator position for inactivity. Please note the MRT International Airport will still be owned and organized by BossOfGames, as well as any other projects owned by him. If you have any questions or concerns about this, feel free to talk with myself or the admins.

In other news, the next General Staff Meeting will be held this upcoming Saturday, June 14th at 10PM GMT. Staff will have a private discussion beforehand starting at 9PM GMT, followed by public announcements at 10PM, and then a Open Floor / Q & A at the end of the meeting.